Due to rapidly aging populations, the number of people worldwide experiencing dementia is increasing, and the projections are grim. Despite billions of dollars invested in medical research, no ...
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Due to rapidly aging populations, the number of people worldwide experiencing dementia is increasing, and the projections are grim. Despite billions of dollars invested in medical research, no effective treatment has been discovered for Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia. This book exposes the predicaments embedded in current efforts to slow down or halt Alzheimer's disease through early detection of pre-symptomatic biological changes in healthy individuals. Based on a meticulous account of the history of Alzheimer's disease and extensive in-depth interviews, the book highlights the limitations and the dissent associated with biomarker detection. It argues that basic research must continue, but should be complemented by a public health approach to prevention that is economically feasible, more humane, and much more effective globally than one exclusively focused on an increasingly harried search for a cure.Less

The Alzheimer Conundrum : Entanglements of Dementia and Aging

Margaret Lock

Published in print: 2013-10-27

Due to rapidly aging populations, the number of people worldwide experiencing dementia is increasing, and the projections are grim. Despite billions of dollars invested in medical research, no effective treatment has been discovered for Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia. This book exposes the predicaments embedded in current efforts to slow down or halt Alzheimer's disease through early detection of pre-symptomatic biological changes in healthy individuals. Based on a meticulous account of the history of Alzheimer's disease and extensive in-depth interviews, the book highlights the limitations and the dissent associated with biomarker detection. It argues that basic research must continue, but should be complemented by a public health approach to prevention that is economically feasible, more humane, and much more effective globally than one exclusively focused on an increasingly harried search for a cure.

Every year more and more Europeans, including Germans, are embracing Islam. It is estimated that there are now up to 100,000 German converts—a number similar to that in France and the United Kingdom. ...
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Every year more and more Europeans, including Germans, are embracing Islam. It is estimated that there are now up to 100,000 German converts—a number similar to that in France and the United Kingdom. What stands out about recent conversions is that they take place at a time when Islam is increasingly seen as contrary to European values. This book explores how Germans come to Islam within this antagonistic climate, how they manage to balance their love for Islam with their society's fear of it, how they relate to immigrant Muslims, and how they shape debates about race, religion, and belonging in today's Europe. The book looks at how mainstream society marginalizes converts and questions their national loyalties. In turn, converts try to disassociate themselves from migrants of Muslim-majority countries and promote a denationalized Islam untainted by Turkish or Arab traditions. Some German Muslims believe that once cleansed of these accretions, the Islam that surfaces fits in well with German values and lifestyle. Others even argue that being a German Muslim is wholly compatible with the older values of the German Enlightenment. This book provides a fresh window into the connections and tensions stemming from a growing religious phenomenon in Germany and beyond.Less

Being German, Becoming Muslim : Race, Religion, and Conversion in the New Europe

Esra Özyürek

Published in print: 2014-11-23

Every year more and more Europeans, including Germans, are embracing Islam. It is estimated that there are now up to 100,000 German converts—a number similar to that in France and the United Kingdom. What stands out about recent conversions is that they take place at a time when Islam is increasingly seen as contrary to European values. This book explores how Germans come to Islam within this antagonistic climate, how they manage to balance their love for Islam with their society's fear of it, how they relate to immigrant Muslims, and how they shape debates about race, religion, and belonging in today's Europe. The book looks at how mainstream society marginalizes converts and questions their national loyalties. In turn, converts try to disassociate themselves from migrants of Muslim-majority countries and promote a denationalized Islam untainted by Turkish or Arab traditions. Some German Muslims believe that once cleansed of these accretions, the Islam that surfaces fits in well with German values and lifestyle. Others even argue that being a German Muslim is wholly compatible with the older values of the German Enlightenment. This book provides a fresh window into the connections and tensions stemming from a growing religious phenomenon in Germany and beyond.

Thousands of people from more than eighty countries have traveled to China since 2001 to undergo fetal cell transplantation. Galvanized by the potential of stem and fetal cells to regenerate damaged ...
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Thousands of people from more than eighty countries have traveled to China since 2001 to undergo fetal cell transplantation. Galvanized by the potential of stem and fetal cells to regenerate damaged neurons and restore lost bodily functions, people grappling with paralysis and neurodegenerative disorders have ignored the warnings of doctors and scientists back home in order to stake their futures on a Chinese experiment. This book looks at why and how these individuals have entrusted their lives to Chinese neurosurgeons operating at the forefront of experimental medicine, in a world where technologies and risks move faster than laws can keep pace. The book shows how cutting-edge medicine is not just about the latest advances in biomedical science but also encompasses transformations in online patient activism, surgical intervention, and borderline experiments in health care bureaucracy. The book opens up important theoretical and methodological horizons in the anthropology of science, technology, and medicine. It illuminates how poignant journeys in search of fetal cell cures become tangled in complex webs of digital mediation, the entrepreneurial logics of postsocialist medicine, and fraught debates about the ethics of clinical experimentation. Using innovative methods to track the border-crossing quests of Chinese clinicians and their patients from around the world, the book maps the transnational life of fetal cell therapies.Less

Biomedical Odysseys : Fetal Cell Experiments from Cyberspace to China

Priscilla Song

Published in print: 2017-05-16

Thousands of people from more than eighty countries have traveled to China since 2001 to undergo fetal cell transplantation. Galvanized by the potential of stem and fetal cells to regenerate damaged neurons and restore lost bodily functions, people grappling with paralysis and neurodegenerative disorders have ignored the warnings of doctors and scientists back home in order to stake their futures on a Chinese experiment. This book looks at why and how these individuals have entrusted their lives to Chinese neurosurgeons operating at the forefront of experimental medicine, in a world where technologies and risks move faster than laws can keep pace. The book shows how cutting-edge medicine is not just about the latest advances in biomedical science but also encompasses transformations in online patient activism, surgical intervention, and borderline experiments in health care bureaucracy. The book opens up important theoretical and methodological horizons in the anthropology of science, technology, and medicine. It illuminates how poignant journeys in search of fetal cell cures become tangled in complex webs of digital mediation, the entrepreneurial logics of postsocialist medicine, and fraught debates about the ethics of clinical experimentation. Using innovative methods to track the border-crossing quests of Chinese clinicians and their patients from around the world, the book maps the transnational life of fetal cell therapies.

The last three decades have seen a massive expansion of China's visual culture industries, from architecture and graphic design to fine art and fashion. New ideologies of creativity and creative ...
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The last three decades have seen a massive expansion of China's visual culture industries, from architecture and graphic design to fine art and fashion. New ideologies of creativity and creative practices have reshaped the training of a new generation of art school graduates. This is the first book to explore how Chinese art students develop, embody, and promote their own personalities and styles as they move from art school entrance test preparation, to art school, to work in the country's burgeoning culture industries. The book shows the connections between this creative explosion and the Chinese government's explicit goal of cultivating creative human capital in a new “market socialist” economy where value is produced through innovation. Drawing on years of fieldwork in China's leading art academies and art test prep schools, the book combines ethnography and oral history with analyses of contemporary avant-garde and official art, popular media, and propaganda. Examining the rise of a Chinese artistic vanguard and creative knowledge-based economy, the book sheds light on an important facet of today's China.Less

Creativity Class : Art School and Culture Work in Postsocialist China

Lily Chumley

Published in print: 2016-06-21

The last three decades have seen a massive expansion of China's visual culture industries, from architecture and graphic design to fine art and fashion. New ideologies of creativity and creative practices have reshaped the training of a new generation of art school graduates. This is the first book to explore how Chinese art students develop, embody, and promote their own personalities and styles as they move from art school entrance test preparation, to art school, to work in the country's burgeoning culture industries. The book shows the connections between this creative explosion and the Chinese government's explicit goal of cultivating creative human capital in a new “market socialist” economy where value is produced through innovation. Drawing on years of fieldwork in China's leading art academies and art test prep schools, the book combines ethnography and oral history with analyses of contemporary avant-garde and official art, popular media, and propaganda. Examining the rise of a Chinese artistic vanguard and creative knowledge-based economy, the book sheds light on an important facet of today's China.

In the Indian outsourcing industry, employees are expected to be “dead ringers” for the more expensive American workers they have replaced—complete with Westernized names, accents, habits, and ...
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In the Indian outsourcing industry, employees are expected to be “dead ringers” for the more expensive American workers they have replaced—complete with Westernized names, accents, habits, and lifestyles that are organized around a foreign culture in a distant time zone. This book chronicles the rise of a workforce for whom mimicry is a job requirement and a passion. In the process, it reveals the complications of hybrid lives and presents a vivid portrait of a workplace where globalization carries as many downsides as advantages. The book suggests that the relatively high wages in the outsourcing sector have empowered a class of cultural emulators. These young Indian workers indulge in American-style shopping binges at glittering malls, party at upscale nightclubs, and arrange romantic trysts at exurban cafés. But while the high-tech outsourcing industry is a matter of considerable pride for India, global corporations view the industry as a low-cost, often low-skill sector. Workers use the digital tools of the information economy not to complete technologically innovative tasks but to perform grunt work and rote customer service. Long hours and the graveyard shift lead to health problems and social estrangement. Surveillance is tight, management is overweening, and workers are caught in a cycle of hope and disappointment. Through lively ethnographic detail and subtle analysis of interviews with workers, managers, and employers, the book demonstrates the culturally transformative power of globalization and its effects on the lives of the individuals at its edges.Less

Dead Ringers : How Outsourcing Is Changing the Way Indians Understand Themselves

Shehzad Nadeem

Published in print: 2011-02-06

In the Indian outsourcing industry, employees are expected to be “dead ringers” for the more expensive American workers they have replaced—complete with Westernized names, accents, habits, and lifestyles that are organized around a foreign culture in a distant time zone. This book chronicles the rise of a workforce for whom mimicry is a job requirement and a passion. In the process, it reveals the complications of hybrid lives and presents a vivid portrait of a workplace where globalization carries as many downsides as advantages. The book suggests that the relatively high wages in the outsourcing sector have empowered a class of cultural emulators. These young Indian workers indulge in American-style shopping binges at glittering malls, party at upscale nightclubs, and arrange romantic trysts at exurban cafés. But while the high-tech outsourcing industry is a matter of considerable pride for India, global corporations view the industry as a low-cost, often low-skill sector. Workers use the digital tools of the information economy not to complete technologically innovative tasks but to perform grunt work and rote customer service. Long hours and the graveyard shift lead to health problems and social estrangement. Surveillance is tight, management is overweening, and workers are caught in a cycle of hope and disappointment. Through lively ethnographic detail and subtle analysis of interviews with workers, managers, and employers, the book demonstrates the culturally transformative power of globalization and its effects on the lives of the individuals at its edges.

In New York City in 2009, a new kind of public school opened its doors to its inaugural class of middle schoolers. Conceived by a team of game designers and progressive educational reformers and ...
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In New York City in 2009, a new kind of public school opened its doors to its inaugural class of middle schoolers. Conceived by a team of game designers and progressive educational reformers and backed by prominent philanthropic foundations, it promised to reinvent the classroom for the digital age. This book documents the life of the school from its planning stages to the graduation of its first eighth-grade class. It is the account of how this “school for digital kids,” heralded as a model of tech-driven educational reform, reverted to a more conventional type of schooling with rote learning, an emphasis on discipline, and traditional hierarchies of authority. Troubling gender and racialized class divisions also emerged. The book shows how the philanthropic possibilities of new media technologies are repeatedly idealized even though actual interventions routinely fall short of the desired outcomes. It traces the complex processes by which idealistic tech-reform perennially takes root, unsettles the worlds into which it intervenes, and eventually stabilizes in ways that remake and extend many of the social predicaments reformers hope to fix. It offers a nuanced look at the roles that powerful elites, experts, the media, and the intended beneficiaries of reform—in this case, the students and their parents—play in perpetuating the cycle. The book offers a timely examination of techno-philanthropism and the yearnings and dilemmas it seeks to address, revealing what failed interventions do manage to accomplish—and for whom.Less

Disruptive Fixation : School Reform and the Pitfalls of Techno-Idealism

Christo Sims

Published in print: 2017-03-28

In New York City in 2009, a new kind of public school opened its doors to its inaugural class of middle schoolers. Conceived by a team of game designers and progressive educational reformers and backed by prominent philanthropic foundations, it promised to reinvent the classroom for the digital age. This book documents the life of the school from its planning stages to the graduation of its first eighth-grade class. It is the account of how this “school for digital kids,” heralded as a model of tech-driven educational reform, reverted to a more conventional type of schooling with rote learning, an emphasis on discipline, and traditional hierarchies of authority. Troubling gender and racialized class divisions also emerged. The book shows how the philanthropic possibilities of new media technologies are repeatedly idealized even though actual interventions routinely fall short of the desired outcomes. It traces the complex processes by which idealistic tech-reform perennially takes root, unsettles the worlds into which it intervenes, and eventually stabilizes in ways that remake and extend many of the social predicaments reformers hope to fix. It offers a nuanced look at the roles that powerful elites, experts, the media, and the intended beneficiaries of reform—in this case, the students and their parents—play in perpetuating the cycle. The book offers a timely examination of techno-philanthropism and the yearnings and dilemmas it seeks to address, revealing what failed interventions do manage to accomplish—and for whom.

In the 1980s, a research team led by Parisian scientists identified several unique DNA sequences, or haplotypes, linked to sickle cell anemia in African populations. After casual observations of how ...
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In the 1980s, a research team led by Parisian scientists identified several unique DNA sequences, or haplotypes, linked to sickle cell anemia in African populations. After casual observations of how patients managed this painful blood disorder, the researchers in question postulated that the Senegalese type was less severe. This book traces how this genetic discourse has blotted from view the roles that Senegalese patients and doctors have played in making sickle cell “mild” in a social setting where public health priorities and economic austerity programs have forced people to improvise informal strategies of care. The book shows how geneticists, who were fixated on population differences, never investigated the various modalities of self-care that people developed in this context of biomedical scarcity, and how local doctors, confronted with dire cuts in Senegal's health sector, wittingly accepted the genetic prognosis of better-than-expected health outcomes. Unlike most genetic determinisms that highlight the absoluteness of disease, DNA haplotypes for sickle cell in Senegal did the opposite. As the book demonstrates, they allowed the condition to remain officially invisible, never to materialize as a health priority. At the same time, scientists' attribution of a less severe form of Senegalese sickle cell to isolated DNA sequences closed off other explanations of this population's measured biological success. This book reveals how the notion of an advantageous form of sickle cell in this part of West Africa has defined—and obscured—the nature of this illness in Senegal today.Less

Duana Fullwiley

Published in print: 2011-11-27

In the 1980s, a research team led by Parisian scientists identified several unique DNA sequences, or haplotypes, linked to sickle cell anemia in African populations. After casual observations of how patients managed this painful blood disorder, the researchers in question postulated that the Senegalese type was less severe. This book traces how this genetic discourse has blotted from view the roles that Senegalese patients and doctors have played in making sickle cell “mild” in a social setting where public health priorities and economic austerity programs have forced people to improvise informal strategies of care. The book shows how geneticists, who were fixated on population differences, never investigated the various modalities of self-care that people developed in this context of biomedical scarcity, and how local doctors, confronted with dire cuts in Senegal's health sector, wittingly accepted the genetic prognosis of better-than-expected health outcomes. Unlike most genetic determinisms that highlight the absoluteness of disease, DNA haplotypes for sickle cell in Senegal did the opposite. As the book demonstrates, they allowed the condition to remain officially invisible, never to materialize as a health priority. At the same time, scientists' attribution of a less severe form of Senegalese sickle cell to isolated DNA sequences closed off other explanations of this population's measured biological success. This book reveals how the notion of an advantageous form of sickle cell in this part of West Africa has defined—and obscured—the nature of this illness in Senegal today.

The human propensity to take an ethical stance toward oneself and others is found in every known society, yet we also know that values taken for granted in one society can contradict those in ...
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The human propensity to take an ethical stance toward oneself and others is found in every known society, yet we also know that values taken for granted in one society can contradict those in another. Does ethical life arise from human nature itself? Is it a universal human trait? Or is it a product of one's cultural and historical context? This book offers a new approach to the empirical study of ethical life that reconciles these questions, showing how ethics arise at the intersection of human biology and social dynamics. Drawing on the latest findings in psychology, conversational interaction, ethnography, and history, the book takes readers from inner city America to Samoa and the Inuit Arctic to reveal how we are creatures of our biology as well as our history—and how our ethical lives are contingent on both. The book looks at Melanesian theories of mind and the training of Buddhist monks, and discusses important social causes such as the British abolitionist movement and American feminism. It explores how styles of child rearing, notions of the person, and moral codes in different communities elaborate on certain basic human tendencies while suppressing or ignoring others. Certain to provoke debate, the book presents an entirely new way of thinking about ethics, morals, and the factors that shape them.Less

Ethical Life : Its Natural and Social Histories

Webb Keane

Published in print: 2015-10-06

The human propensity to take an ethical stance toward oneself and others is found in every known society, yet we also know that values taken for granted in one society can contradict those in another. Does ethical life arise from human nature itself? Is it a universal human trait? Or is it a product of one's cultural and historical context? This book offers a new approach to the empirical study of ethical life that reconciles these questions, showing how ethics arise at the intersection of human biology and social dynamics. Drawing on the latest findings in psychology, conversational interaction, ethnography, and history, the book takes readers from inner city America to Samoa and the Inuit Arctic to reveal how we are creatures of our biology as well as our history—and how our ethical lives are contingent on both. The book looks at Melanesian theories of mind and the training of Buddhist monks, and discusses important social causes such as the British abolitionist movement and American feminism. It explores how styles of child rearing, notions of the person, and moral codes in different communities elaborate on certain basic human tendencies while suppressing or ignoring others. Certain to provoke debate, the book presents an entirely new way of thinking about ethics, morals, and the factors that shape them.

For some, the idea of an Islamic state serves to fulfill aspirations for cultural sovereignty and new forms of ethical political practice. For others, it violates the proper domains of both religion ...
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For some, the idea of an Islamic state serves to fulfill aspirations for cultural sovereignty and new forms of ethical political practice. For others, it violates the proper domains of both religion and politics. Yet, while there has been much discussion of the idea and ideals of the Islamic state, its possibilities and impossibilities, surprisingly little has been written about how this political formation is lived. This book looks at the Republic of Sudan's twenty-five-year experiment with Islamic statehood. Focusing not on state institutions, but rather on the daily life that goes on in their shadows, the book examines the lasting effects of state Islamization on Sudanese society through a study of the individuals and organizations working in its midst. The book investigates Sudan at a crucial moment in its history—balanced between unity and partition, secular and religious politics, peace and war—when those who desired an Islamic state were rethinking the political form under which they had lived for nearly a generation. Countering the dominant discourse, the book depicts contemporary Islamic politics not as a response to secularism and Westernization but as a node in a much longer conversation within Islamic thought, augmented and reappropriated as state projects of Islamic reform became objects of debate and controversy. The book reveals both novel political ideals and new articulations of Islam as it is rethought through the lens of the nation.Less

For Love of the Prophet : An Ethnography of Sudan's Islamic State

Noah Salomon

Published in print: 2016-10-25

For some, the idea of an Islamic state serves to fulfill aspirations for cultural sovereignty and new forms of ethical political practice. For others, it violates the proper domains of both religion and politics. Yet, while there has been much discussion of the idea and ideals of the Islamic state, its possibilities and impossibilities, surprisingly little has been written about how this political formation is lived. This book looks at the Republic of Sudan's twenty-five-year experiment with Islamic statehood. Focusing not on state institutions, but rather on the daily life that goes on in their shadows, the book examines the lasting effects of state Islamization on Sudanese society through a study of the individuals and organizations working in its midst. The book investigates Sudan at a crucial moment in its history—balanced between unity and partition, secular and religious politics, peace and war—when those who desired an Islamic state were rethinking the political form under which they had lived for nearly a generation. Countering the dominant discourse, the book depicts contemporary Islamic politics not as a response to secularism and Westernization but as a node in a much longer conversation within Islamic thought, augmented and reappropriated as state projects of Islamic reform became objects of debate and controversy. The book reveals both novel political ideals and new articulations of Islam as it is rethought through the lens of the nation.

South Beirut has recently become a vibrant leisure destination with a plethora of cafés and restaurants that cater to the young, fashionable, and pious. What effects have these establishments had on ...
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South Beirut has recently become a vibrant leisure destination with a plethora of cafés and restaurants that cater to the young, fashionable, and pious. What effects have these establishments had on the moral norms, spatial practices, and urban experiences of this Lebanese community? From the diverse voices of young Shi'i Muslims searching for places to hang out, to the Hezbollah officials who want this media-savvy generation to be more politically involved, to the religious leaders worried that Lebanese youth are losing their moral compasses, this book provides a sophisticated and original look at leisure in the Lebanese capital. What makes a café morally appropriate? How do people negotiate morality in relation to different places? And under what circumstances might a pious Muslim go to a café that serves alcohol? This book highlights tensions and complexities exacerbated by the presence of multiple religious authorities, a fraught sectarian political context, class mobility, and a generation that takes religion for granted but wants to have fun. The book elucidates the political, economic, religious, and social changes that have taken place since 2000, and examines leisure's influence on Lebanese sociopolitical and urban situations. Asserting that morality and geography cannot be fully understood in isolation from one another, the book offers a colorful new understanding of the most powerful community in Lebanon today.Less

Lara DeebMona Harb

Published in print: 2013-10-27

South Beirut has recently become a vibrant leisure destination with a plethora of cafés and restaurants that cater to the young, fashionable, and pious. What effects have these establishments had on the moral norms, spatial practices, and urban experiences of this Lebanese community? From the diverse voices of young Shi'i Muslims searching for places to hang out, to the Hezbollah officials who want this media-savvy generation to be more politically involved, to the religious leaders worried that Lebanese youth are losing their moral compasses, this book provides a sophisticated and original look at leisure in the Lebanese capital. What makes a café morally appropriate? How do people negotiate morality in relation to different places? And under what circumstances might a pious Muslim go to a café that serves alcohol? This book highlights tensions and complexities exacerbated by the presence of multiple religious authorities, a fraught sectarian political context, class mobility, and a generation that takes religion for granted but wants to have fun. The book elucidates the political, economic, religious, and social changes that have taken place since 2000, and examines leisure's influence on Lebanese sociopolitical and urban situations. Asserting that morality and geography cannot be fully understood in isolation from one another, the book offers a colorful new understanding of the most powerful community in Lebanon today.

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